Essay on The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson

Essay on The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson

Essay Preview

"The Lottery"

In "The Lottery" Shirley Jackson presents us with a shocking story guaranteed to outrage the reader. The author brings together the residents of a small village as they are gathered for an annual event referred to as the lottery. The families of the village are represented by their names on small pieces of paper, which are placed in a black box. The appointed townsperson oversees the drawing to determine who pulls the slip of paper that "wins" the drawing. The characters seem ordinary enough, and they appear to be pleasant mild people participating in an innocuous activity. There is a huge shock when the story turns violent. The peaceful village people are choosing which person in their community they are going to stone to death. "The Lottery" illustrates the danger and potential violence of a society that ignorantly follows a tradition without considering the harm they are causing.

There are many examples of society following violent traditions. A look at professional sports is a good example. In most sports it is a referees job to stop or restrain an athlete who tries to harm another athlete during the game. However, in the National Hockey League players frequently drop their gloves and engage in fistfights on the ice. The referees actually back away and allow the fighting to continue. I have often wondered why they would allow this kind of brutality. The answer is found in the kind of thinking represented in this story. In the story when someone remarks that some towns have given up their lottery's, an elderly old man called Old Man Warner, snorts and calls them "crazy fools and blames it on the young folks wanting to change everything" (81). He defends the tradition with one simple premise; "there ha...

... middle of paper ...

...radition steeped collegiates and the brawling athletes. All of these people exemplify what happens when a tradition is perpetuated through generations without regard to the consequences. I think all of these people are afraid to admit there is anything wrong with continuing these traditions because the subsequent conclusion would be that they were wrong all along. Every society has the responsibility to examine its traditions and rituals. We have to question the morality of our history before we allow it to set the precedent for the future. An intelligent society cannot allow loyalty to tradition to perpetuate ignorant and violent behavior.

Need Writing Help?

- Shirley Jackson’s famous short story, “The Lottery,” was published in 1948 and remains to this day one of the most enduring and affecting American works in the literary canon. “The Lottery” tells the story of a farming community that holds a ritualistic lottery among its citizens each year. Although the text initially presents audiences with a close-knit community participating in a social event together on a special day, the shocking twist at the work’s end—with the death of the lottery’s “winner” by public stoning—has led to its widespread popularity, public outcry and discussion, and continued examination in modern times (Jackson).... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery 2014]

- Tradition in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery Shirley Jackson?s insights and observations about society are reflected in her shocking and disturbing short story The Lottery. Jackson reveals two general attitudes in this story: first is the shocking tendency for societies to select a scapegoat and second is the idea that communities are victims of social tradition and rituals. Anyone with knowledge of current events must be aware of times when society has seized upon a scapegoat as means of resolution.... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery Essays]

- Foreshadowing in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery "The Lottery," a short story written by Shirley Jackson, is a tale about a disturbing social practice. The setting takes place in a small village consisting of about three hundred denizens. On June twenty-seventh of every year, the members of this traditional community hold a village-wide lottery in which everyone is expected to participate. Throughout the story, the reader gets an odd feeling regarding the residents and their annual practice. Not until the end does he or she gets to know what the lottery is about. Thus, from the beginning of the story until almost the end, there is an overwhelming sense that something terrible is... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery Essays]

- Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery' The setting in a story helps to form the story and it makes the characters become more interesting. There are three main types of setting. The first is nature and the outdoors, second is objects of human manufacture and construction and the third is cultural conditions and assumptions. These three things help the reader to understand the characters better in Shirley Jackson's 'The Lottery';. 'The Lottery'; is started out by being described as 'The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full summer day.'; The flowers are blooming and the children have just gotten out of school for the summer.... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery Essays]

- Point of View in The Lottery Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" uses the third-person dramatic point of view to tell a story about an un-named village that celebrates a wicked, annual event. The narrator in the story gives many small details of the lottery taking place, but leaves the most crucial and chilling detail until the end: the winner of the lottery is stoned to death by the other villagers. The use of the third-person point of view, with just a few cases of third-person omniscient thrown in, is an effective way of telling this ironic tale, both because the narrator's reporter-like blandness parallels the villagers' apparent apathy to the lottery, and because it helps build to the sur... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery Essays]

- Tradition or Cruelty in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" satirizes barbaric traditions in a supposedly civilized village. As the story begins, the villagers appear to be fairly civilized and carry on fairly modern lifestyles. This is assumed by the men's discussion of planting, rain, tractors, and taxes. The lottery was outdated to such a degree that some may think that the tradition is primal competition of anthropoid beasts. On the other hand, some think that carrying on the tradition was necessary.... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery Essays]

- Importance of Setting in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery The setting in the beginning of The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, creates a mood of peacefulness and tranquillity. The image portrayed by the author is that of a typical town on a normal summer day. Shirley Jackson uses this setting to foreshadow an ironic ending. First, Jackson begins by establishing the setting. She tells the reader what time of day and what time of year the story takes place. This is important to get the reader to focus on what a typical day it is in this small town. The time of day is set in the morning and the time of year is early summer.... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery Essays]

- Hidden Horrors in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" presents conflict on more than one level. The most important conflict in the story is between the subject matter and the way the story is told. From the beginning Jackson takes great pains to present her short story as a folksy piece of Americana. Slowly it dawns on us, the terrible outcome of what she describes. From the first sentence of the story, The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green.... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery Essays]

- Social Hysteria in The Lottery Tradition is a central theme in Shirley Jackon's short story The Lottery. Images such as the black box and characters such as Old Man Warner, Mrs. Adams, and Mrs. Hutchinson display to the reader not only the tenacity with which the townspeople cling to the tradition of the lottery, but also the wavering support of it by others. In just a few pages, Jackson manages to examine the sometimes long forgotten purpose of rituals, as well as the inevitable questioning of the necessity for such customs.... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery Essays]

- When Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, it struck a nerve with readers. “The story was incendiary; readers acted as if a bomb had blown up in their faces . . . Shirley struck a nerve in mid-twentieth-century America . . . She had told people a painful truth about themselves” (Oppenheimer 129). Interestingly, the story strikes that same nerve with readers today. When my English class recently viewed the video, those students who had not previously read the story reacted quite strongly to the ending.... [tags: Shirley Jackson Lottery 2014]